How it’s made: Apple 2013 Mac Pro edition

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Packed in with all the iPad news yesterday was the official unveiling of the price and release date for the new Mac Pro. Given that this workstation starts at $3000, it’s understandable that it has limited appeal to the general populace, but most people will agree that it’s a very cool product. And even if you can’t afford a dual graphics powerhouse stuffed with 12GB of RAM and a quad-core processor (and that’s the entry level model), you can surely appreciate how this workstation was built. It’s for your lust-filled heart that Apple put together this video showing off how the Mac Pro was assembled, partly by hand, in America.

The video, as you’ll soon see, is extremely slick. The process starts off with the creation of the case — which starts out at an aluminum blank that is pressed into a hollow cylinder using tremendous pressure — and then goes to the lathe where the exterior is brought from a raw finish to a clean aluminum. The case is then lifted by a robotic arm, has its top cut open, and then it’s polished on a wheel.

The cylinder is then covered with a blue coating and it’s milled, which is when the I/O holes are cut out. During milling that blue coating will come in handy, preventing scratching from those flying metal shavings. Before long the cases are dipped (anodized), re-dipped any number of times, and then sent further down the conveyor belt.

Now we’re finally moving on the the interior componentry. This is the unified thermal core that Apple told us about when the Mac Pro was first revealed this summer. The GPU, CPU, and other heat-producing parts are placed directly against that machined aluminum heatsink, which is what allows the system to use a single fan as opposed one on each of these components. We don’t ever get to see the parts being mounted to the heatsink though, which is unfortunate. We do get to see the extruded aluminum core get bead blasted, so that the surface can be brought to Apple’s desired finish.

After the heatsink we finally see some humans, just to remind us that this workstation isn’t entirely made by robots. (Being made in America wouldn’t be too big of a deal if the Mac Pro was solely constructed by robots would it?) Then it’s on to the most awesome of all manufacturing bots, the pick-and-place machines, which fill in the mainboards with assorted chips and caps. Humans then inspect the parts and finalize the assembly of the Mac Pro, where the core is joined with the case and the final screws are tightened. After that it’s on to laser etching, final inspection and packaging, and then off to your local Apple store.